Waterloo, Ia. – Playing up her home field advantage as the only Iowa-born presidential candidate, tea party hero Michele Bachmann made her formal announcement for the White House here Monday, saying the country can’t afford four more years of Democrat Barack Obama as president.

The Minnesota congresswoman earlier this year was considered a third-tier candidate unlikely to do well outside states like Iowa where social conservatives wield large influence in the Republican Party. But her announcement on the sunny lawn of a historic mansion came a day after the Iowa Poll showed her in a statistical tie with Massachusetts’ Mitt Romney as the top choice of likely Republican caucusgoers. Now, she’s being talked about as a serious competitor who is making smart moves.

“Bachmann has demonstrated an ability to energize supporters, and she will need to keep that up as well as to reach out to new folks,” said Timothy Hagle, a political science professor and adviser of the Iowa Federation of College Republicans. “Easier said than done, of course, but right now she’s made it to the front of the pack, and we’ll see if she can maintain that position as we get deeper into the campaign season.”

Bachmann, 55, received support from 22 percent of respondents in The Des Moines Register’s Iowa Poll, with Romney at 23 percent. She’s the second choice of 18 percent, finding popularity with key slices of the caucus electorate: tea party activists worried about debt and spending, home-schoolers, abortion opponents and evangelical Christians.

But as Bachmann’s stature grows in the presidential race, so does the scrutiny of her past, including critics who cite the three-term congresswoman’s lack of legislative accomplishment or executive experience.

In an announcement speech dominated by broad themes rather than policy pronouncements, Bachmann said she’s not running for power, fortune or vanity.

“I do so because I am so profoundly grateful for the blessings that I have received both from God and from this country, and not because of the position of the office, but because I am determined that every American deserves these blessings and that together we can secure the promise of the future for America,” Bachmann said at the historic Snowden House, once the home of the Waterloo Women’s Club.

Addressing a crowd of about 400, Bachmann said: “As a constitutional conservative, I believe in the founding fathers’ vision of a limited government that trusts in and preserves the unlimited potential of the American people.”

Bachmann, who lived in Waterloo-Cedar Falls until she was 12, told the story of Waterloo’s five Sullivan brothers, who died when the USS Juneau was attacked in World War II. “To honor the Sullivans, two ships were named for them,” she said. “The motto of the last ship: ‘We stick together!’ ”

Bachmann is known for her sharp attacks and partisan voting record in Congress. But in her announcement speech, she asked people during the rancor of the campaign to remember, “there’s always so much more that unites us as a nation than divides us,” she said.

During her speech, Bachmann glanced at notes, but seemed to have much of her speech memorized. She spoke without a teleprompter, a device she has ribbed Obama for using. (Sunday night, she joked that “President Bachmann may be retiring that thing, by the way, when I get to the White House.”)

Bachmann criticizes Obama on Afghanistan policies

She recited a list of problems she sees facing the country: debt, an unconstitutional health plan, unemployment, jobs that pay too little for people to support their families, a housing crisis that is devaluing homes, foreign policy that leads from behind.

In an interview with The Des Moines Register, Bachmann also criticized Obama’s plans for Afghanistan, calling them both naive and politically motivated.

Asked when exactly she would begin to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, Bachmann did not directly answer but said: “We need to win the war on terror. I think the president has exhibited a misunderstanding and a naivete in Afghanistan by announcing a pre-withdrawal date.”

She added: “The president, when he was a candidate, stated this is the war of necessity. Now it appears that his actions have more to do with the politics of necessity.”

Obama in 2009 told military service members that Afghanistan was a “war of necessity” because those who attacked the country on 9/11 were plotting to do it again. Last week, he pledged to reduce U.S. forces in Afghanistan by more than 30,000 by next summer. His drawdown plan is more aggressive than what was proposed by Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. military commander in Afghanistan.

Bachmann said: “He’s looking more toward political strategy than military strategy because it doesn’t appear that this is the Petraeus plan. It appears this is more of the Obama-Biden plan.”

Questions raised about exaggerations, verbal gaffes

As Bachmann’s popularity climbs, she is being confronted more often for making misstatements and exaggerations. Monday, she told Fox News that Winterset-born actor “John Wayne is from Waterloo.”

On CNN last fall, she said Obama would be taking a trip to India, with 2,000 people in tow, that was expected to cost the taxpayers $200 million a day, a claim the White House emphatically dismissed as false.

Sunday, on Fox News, anchorman Chris Wallace said she faces derision for talking about anti-America members of Congress and suggesting that NATO air strikes had killed up to 30,000 civilians.

Wallace paused, took a breath, then said, “Are you a flake?”

Bachmann answered with the autobiography she delivers in her stump speech: married 33 years, a lawyer, a post-doctoral degree in federal tax law, worked in the U.S. federal tax court, raised five children, raised 23 foster children, started a charter school for at-risk kids.

On Monday, Ron Carey, former Minnesota Republican Party chairman and former Bachmann chief of staff, said Iowans should “look behind the curtain” before they become infatuated with her skillful oratory.

Carey, who has endorsed Pawlenty, said in an interview that he’s a soulmate of Bachmann’s on conservative ideology, but doesn’t think she has the experience to lead the country.

“She has few friends and allies on Capitol Hill even in the Republican ranks,” he said. “She’s not treated poorly; she’s held at arm’s length basically. A lot of it is she’s developed a reputation for not being a team player. It’s about Team Bachmann.”

Campaign gears up: She’s back in Iowa next weekend

Bachmann didn’t appear in the May 5 GOP debate in South Carolina, and her relatively slow start in Iowa – with no campaign office, website or TV ads and just a handful of trips here – led to questions about the strength of her campaign organization.

But her performance in the New Hampshire debate stirred positive buzz. She has a new deputy campaign manager, David Polyansky, who was an aide to Mike Huckabee’s 2008 presidential campaign. Her Iowa headquarters, on 86th Street in Urbandale, is set to open next week, her advisers said.

She will campaign in New Hampshire and South Carolina this week but will be back in Iowa for a Fourth of July weekend stretch.

“When you say what comes to mind, you’re going to make misstatements,” said Boustead, who works with entrepreneurial startups. “We have to be a little bit gracious and let them misspeak.”

BACHMANN ON THE ISSUES

U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann’s announcement speech Monday was light on policy solutions, but she answered these questions in an interview with The Des Moines Register:

HEALTH CARE: She has said she would repeal the federal health care reform law, which she calls ObamaCare. Asked how she’d lower costs after the repeal, she said she wants to fully reform medical malpractice laws; allow Americans to buy any policy from any state; and let people pay premiums, deductibles and co-pays with tax-free income.

TAX POLICY: She said she wants to make the corporate tax rate one of the lowest in the industrialized world, reduce or get rid of the capital gains tax, eliminate the estate tax, and allow job creators to expense capital purchases in the same year they were paid for.

IMMIGRATION: Asked whether all illegal immigrants now in the country should be deported, she said: “We can’t go to step two until we deal with step one, which is securing the border. … The laws on the books are actually very good regarding immigration. There’s been a failure on both sides of the aisle, from both Republicans and Democrats, to enforce the laws that we have.”

ENERGY: Asked if the ethanol tax credit should be reduced or eliminated, she said: “I believe that all energy subsidies need to be on the table from all energy industries, because clearly America has a deficit problem. We have a debt problem. … Therefore I think it’s important that we put all those subsidies on the table and take a look at them.”

BIOGRAPHY

DATE OF BIRTH: April 6, 1956

EDUCATION: Bachelor’s degree in political science and English, 1978, Winona State College. Law degree, 1986, Oral Roberts University. Master of law degree, with a focus on the American legal system, 1988, College of William & Mary.

ELECTIVE OFFICE: In 2000, she unseated a fellow Republican who had held his Minnesota Senate seat for 28 years, and was re-elected in 2002. She defeated Democrat Patty Wetterling in 2006 to win her seat in Congress.

OTHER CAREER HIGHLIGHTS: Bachmann spent five years as a U.S. Treasury Department tax litigation attorney from 1995 to 2000, and was a board member at New Heights Charter School for at-risk kids in Minnesota. She and her husband now run a Christian counseling center, Bachmann & Associates, which employs about 40 people with offices in Burnsville and Lake Elmo.